We occasionally post pieces from LCRW and other places up here on the web.

by Gavin J. Grant

Homeland SecurityGavin J. Grant

With thousands of like-minded others, I went to the big peace rally in New York City on February 15th, 2003. It was a cold day, and my wife and I walked up Third Avenue from 32nd to 68th Street before we could cut over to First Avenue and join the rally. Which was really a slow march, but since the city government wouldn’t give us a permit to march, let’s call it a rally.

What do we want?
So many things.
When do want them?
It doesn’t seem possible, but now, please.

…March 5th, 2003, Local News: Writer and editor Gavin J. Grant, 33, (picture) of Northampton, Mass., is believed to be one of hundreds of detainees held after police and other government agencies moved in to calm a noisy and potentially-violent peace rally in New York City’s Washington Square Park….

Ok, look. What the hell are we going to do? Army — and let’s not talk about Navy or Airforce, or the damn “special” forces — recruitment is down to god-awful percentages. What the f*&%? I mean, if not now, as T. Chapman, asked, thenWhen? We ran some numbers on one of those supercool computer Steve Jobs is playing with for us, and it said that we are up the midwest creek without a paddle, a gunnel, or an armored convoy. We need Mom. Not Mobile Operative Missiles, neither Manually Operated Mopeds, but she-who-makes-the PB&Js! It’s time to sort out who the real force in American (ahem, U.S.) politics is today, and we know, if they get their act together, it’s the moms.

House prices far out of reach?Can’t afford an apartment?Come to Prison!

“It’s just like my old man told me,” says Prisoner X, male, 37, married with two children. “Three squares a day, a job and a place to sleep. I’m doing better here than I ever did outside!”

Tired of the noise, the rat-race, the pressure of urban life? Many prisons are in rural and suburban areas. Enjoy the peace, the fresh air of a new prison. Laugh at people hurrying along from one city to another as you take a relaxed walk beside the highway (Keeping America Beautiful as you go).

Worried by overcrowding? It’s not a feature of all our prisons. Besides, there’s always solitary confinement which Charles Dickens enthusiastically described as a “slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain.” (American Notes for General Circulation, London: Chapman & Hall, 1842)

Excerpts from an upcoming textbook to be published by the Northern Massachusetts University School of Industrial History.

From the Introductory Section:

Male Blonding is a modern movement that, however, has its basis in ancient times. Early Male blonds include Jesus of Nazereth who stood out very effectively from the generally dark Israeli crowds. Blonding was very popular in the highlands of Ethiopia where legends of an Aryan tribe grew up around a city where almost everyone blonded their hair. Leonardo da Vinci rediscovered Male Blonding in the Renaissance. It was a huge breakthrough when he announced that lemon juice was as effective if not more so than pigs urine. (He also drew a plan for the first machine to extract juice from lemons but was unable to construct a working model).

by Gavin J. Grant

The death penalty is alive and well as Western calendars and Bill Gates’ computers nervously approach the year 2000. In the US alone at least 490 people have been executed since 1976. But, no matter how much the practice of state mandated killing is debated, we need to abolish it now.